Here in Louisville we have a little over an inch of snow and they are sending kids home early from the public schools this afternoon, while suburban schools (where I live) had no accumulation as of 8 am this morning but still cancelled school anticipating the 1-3 inches that were expected to fall by supper time.

I grew up in northeastern Ohio snowbelt, and have lived 40 or so of my 50 years in either Ohio or worse Wisconsin, where an inch of snow was called a "dusting", a 4-6 inch fall a "little snow", and a foot or more under 24 hours a snow storm. In 7 years in Wisconsin my kids never had a snow day taken off, not once. We typically got our first snowflakes before Thanksgiving, our first snowfall that accumulated in the first two weeks of December, and regularly did not see the green of our grass in the lawn from the middle of December until the middle of March (except where the dogs peed, but then it wasn't green anyway). In a "good storm" we would have to clear our driveways and walkways with snowblowers as much as three or four times in one 24 hour period, even if we salted them good.

Amazes me that with we have better waterproofing fabrics, better insulating clothing materials, waterproof boots, etc..., and better snow clearing equipment, better built schools, better roads, etc... than we did when most of us were kids, but kids nowadays get way more "snow" days off than we ever did as kids. Is it school board policies, safety issues, budgets? that are bringing this on?

one man's O.